Trump says Ukraine President Zelensky 'should have never started’ war with Russia

President Donald Trump said Tuesday that Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky "should have never started" the now roughly three-year-long war with Russia. 

“I think I have the power to end this war. And I think it’s going very well,” Trump said after three members of his administration met hours earlier with Russian officials about ending the war and other, related matter including potential financial deals. 

Zelensky has repeated said since the talks in Saudi Arabia were announced days earlier that Ukraine should have been invited. 

"Today I heard, ‘Oh, well we weren’t invited,’" Trump said from home at Mar-a-Lago, in Florida. "Well, you’ve been there for three years. You should’ve ended it in three years. You should have never started it. You could have made a deal. 

Russia invaded neighbor Ukraine In February 2022.

Zelensky said this past weekend that over 46,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed and roughly 380,000 have been wounded.

"I could have made a deal for Ukraine that would have given them almost all of the land, and no people would have been killed, and no city would have been demolished and not one dome would have been knocked down," Trump also said Tuesday. "But they chose not to do it that way.”

Trump said that he likes Zelensky "personally" but that he cares more about whether a leader is able to get the job done. 

"You have leadership now that’s allowed a war to go on that should have never even happened, even without the United States," he added.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said any agreement to end the war would need to be approved by Russia, Ukraine and Europe as a whole.

Misty Severi is a news reporter for Just The News. You can follow her on X for more coverage.